HASTINGS, Henry (1586-1643)

From a young age it was recognized that Henry Hastings would probably be the eventual heir to his childless great-uncle and namesake, the puritan 3rd earl of Huntingdon. He was accordingly sent to his great-uncle’s household to be educated by (almost certainly) Nathaniel Gilby, a godly scholar whom the 3rd earl recruited from Cambridge. However, it soon became clear that Hastings was likely to inherit far sooner than anyone had anticipated, for in December 1595 both the 3rd earl and Hastings’ own father died. Now styled Lord Hastings, the future 5th earl was described as a clever and attractive child, although somewhat small for a nine-year-old.23 Cross, 54; CSP Dom. 1595-7, p. 164.

Hastings succeeded to the earldom of Huntingdon on the death of his grandfather, George Hastings^*, 4th earl of Huntingdon, in December 1604, by which time he was aged 18. As he was still technically under age, he became a ward of the crown. However, there is no evidence that his wardship was sold; it would have brought little profit, as most of the family estates had been seized by the crown in the 1590s to pay his great-uncle’s debts (although his grandfather had managed to lease them back, thereby enabling him to retain his pre-eminence in Leicestershire).24 GEORGE HASTINGS.

On the day that Huntingdon’s grandfather died, Henry Grey^*, 1st Lord Grey of Groby, who had recently emerged as a rival to the Hastings family in Leicestershire, solicited the 4th earl of Huntingdon’s local offices. These included the posts of lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Leicestershire, forester of Leicester Forest, and the stewardship of the lands belonging to the duchy of Lancaster, a significant landowner in the county. In response, Huntingdon petitioned the king to keep the lord lieutenancy vacant while he was under age and to grant him the forest and duchy of Lancaster offices. Both requests were granted. The office of custos rotulorum went to the ageing Sir Henry Beaumont^‡.25 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 387, 603; HP Commons, 1604-29, iii. 168; R. Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture: the earl of Huntingdon and his enemies’, Political Culture and Culture Pols. in Early Modern Eng. ed. S.D. Amussen and M.A. Kishlansky, 87.

Although his position as a local magnate was thereby secured, Huntingdon’s financial situation was never less than precarious, despite having married, in 1601, one of the daughters of the 5th earl of Derby (Ferdinando Stanley^†), who brought with her a dowry of £4,000. In 1613 nearly £10,000 of the debt to the crown inherited from his great-uncle was still owing, despite more than a decade of repayments. Moreover, the 3rd earl had sold a large amounts of land, and Huntingdon feared what remained would prove insufficient to support his status.26 Lansd. 169, f. 135v; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE377; Huntingdon to Middlesex 18 Sept. and 14 Nov. 1623.

To avoid expense, Huntingdon thought it best to live principally in the country rather than at court, although he derided country gentlemen for their parochialism. In a letter of advice, written in 1612, he advised his son and heir to restrict his journeys to court to major events, such as Parliament and visits by foreign princes. However, limited resources meant that Huntingdon often failed to follow his own advice. Summoned to court following the arrival of the king of Denmark in the summer of 1606, for instance, Huntingdon excused himself on the grounds of poverty and poor health. He was apparently recovering from measles, and was convinced that he suffered chronic bad health in general, which he attributed to his premature birth. Indeed, his advice to his son was compiled because he feared that he would not long survive.27 HMC Hastings, ii. 52; iv. 330-2, 333-4.

Huntingdon’s advice to his son provides an insight into its author’s religious views. Strictly speaking, Huntingdon was not a puritan, as he had no wish to see a further reformation in England, but his education nevertheless made him sympathetic to the godly. He complained that the term ‘puritan’ had been coined by Catholics and atheists and was applied to anyone who tried to lead a moral life. He urged his heir to respect puritan clergymen, or at least those who worked hard in the ministry, arguing that the issues which divided godly ministers from the rest of the Church were not fundamental. Huntingdon himself supported Arthur Hildersham, the nonconformist minister of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where the Hastings family had their traditional seat. Nevertheless, Huntingdon would have preferred it if clergymen like Hildersham had conformed, both out of obedience to the crown and because he considered that ceremonies added dignity to worship. Moreover, unlike many puritans, who disliked episcopacy, Huntingdon thought that the bench of bishops conferred honour on both Church and state. Only in one respect did Huntingdon side with the puritans; he wanted the Sabbath to be rigorously enforced, informing his heir that walking was the only exercise that should be taken on a Sunday.28 Ibid. ii. 54-5; iv. 329-31. For Huntingdon, family loyalty mattered more than religious persuasion. Though staunchly anti-Catholic, he appointed his crypto-Catholic great-uncle, Walter Hastings, as one of his deputy lieutenants. Family loyalty may also explain his support for Hildersham, to whom he was distantly related.29 Ibid. iv. 330, 332; T. Cogswell, Home Divisions, 26-7, 69; R. Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture’, 88.

Inheritance and parliamentary apprenticeship, 1607-11

Huntingdon was first summoned to Parliament on 17 Feb. 1607, during the third session of the first Jacobean assembly, two months and seven days before formally coming of age. He was instructed to attend the upper House two days later, when his writ was entered in the Journal.30 LJ, ii. 474a. In London he purchased Parliament robes costing £30, which sum was paid on 19 May.31 HMC Hastings, i. 365. By 7 Mar. he had evidently been added to the conference committee for the Union, as he was named on the 9th to a subcommittee charged with preparing a report on the conference held two days previously concerning naturalization of the king’s Scottish subjects. As a newcomer to Parliament he may have had difficulty following the arguments made at the 7 Mar. conference. This might explain why he secured an account of what had occurred from his wife’s trustee, Sir John Holles^* (subsequently 1st earl of Clare), then a Member of the Commons.32 LJ, ii. 485b; HMC Portland, ix. 99, 121-3; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 20.

Huntingdon received only one further committee appointment before the Easter recess, for the bill against unlicensed alehouses.33 LJ, ii. 487a. However, he was one of the promoters of the bill to settle the estates of his wife’s father, Ferdinando Stanley, 5th earl of Derby, which received its first reading in the upper House on 23 Feb. 1607. Ferdinando had died in 1594 leaving three daughters, but no sons, whereupon his title had passed to his brother, William Stanley^*, 6th earl of Derby. In 1600 William had agreed to buy out the claims of his nieces to the Stanley estates, from which Huntingdon had benefited in the form of his wife’s portion. The purpose of the 1607 bill was to settle the remainder of the Stanley lands on William. It had a difficult passage through Parliament, but was enacted.34 PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1606/4J1n16; LJ, ii. 475b, 492a, 531a; CJ, i. 387; Bowyer Diary, 349-50; B. Coward, The Stanleys, Lords Stanley and Earls of Derby 1385-1672 (Chetham Soc. ser. 3. xxx), 46-7.

Huntingdon probably left London before the session was adjourned, as he was not recorded as present during the final five sittings before Easter. He did not return until 22 Apr., two days after the session resumed.35 HMC Hastings, i. 366. He then remained in London until 3 June, when James sent him back to Leicestershire to help suppress the Midlands rising, though he also missed six sittings in late May. Before his departure he was appointed to three bill committees: to prevent the enforcement of Canons unless they first received statutory approval, to exchange property between the archdiocese of Canterbury and the crown; and to incorporate a grammar school in Gloucestershire.36 Ibid.; LJ, ii. 503a, 503b, 518a. During his absence, Huntingdon appointed his wife’s stepfather, the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley), as his proxy.37 HMC Hastings, iv. 192; LJ, ii. 449b. Before the session ended, Huntingdon, having now come of age, secured the offices of lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Leicestershire (Beaumont having conveniently died at the end of March).

In June 1608 Huntingdon fended off an attempt by the newly appointed lord treasurer, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, to obtain immediate repayment of the 3rd earl’s debt to the crown. However, he was obliged to increase the rent he paid on his lease of the Hastings estates.38 HMC Hastings, ii. 52; SP14/37/48; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE377; Huntingdon to Middlesex 18 Sept. 1623. The following April, after prolonged negotiations between the earl and the corporation of Leicester, Huntingdon was granted the right to nominate the steward of the borough on alternate years, symbolizing his influence over that town.39 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 225-6.

Parliament was scheduled to reassemble on 9 Feb. 1610 for its fourth session. Huntingdon left Leicestershire on 29 Jan., arriving in the capital three days later. He was subsequently recorded as attending 83 of the 95 sittings, 87 per cent of the total. He again took an extended Easter break in Leicestershire, as he did not set out for London until 16 Apr., the day the session resumed, and did not arrive until the 20th, when he attended the upper House. During his time in London, Huntingdon did a certain amount of sight-seeing, visiting Hyde Park and the tombs in Westminster Abbey. He also took dancing lessons, and, in early July, purchased a coronet for £40. On 16 Mar. he gave 2s. to the poor at the Parliament House, although the Lords did not sit that day.40 HMC Hastings, i. 367-9; LJ, ii. 608b. Huntingdon carried the train at Prince Henry’s creation as prince of Wales on 4 June.41 Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 96.

Huntingdon kept a diary during the session, the first peer ever known to have done so. (He may, of course, have kept a journal in 1607 but, if so, it does not survive.) This diary, which he continued to keep in successive parliaments until 1621, is the most detailed account of the upper House in the early seventeenth century now available. Its closest rivals are the scribbled and minute books kept by the clerk and his assistants, but these tend to be more sketchy. Huntingdon’s diary falls into three parts. The first part, now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, covers the whole of the fourth session and the start of the fifth, and was transcribed from Huntingdon’s original notes, evidently by more than one scribe.42 FSL, V.a.277. However, it probably also incorporates materials derived from the separates Huntingdon collected, and has been corrected by Huntingdon himself. This account breaks off on 14 Nov. 1610. The next volume, now in the Huntington Library, starts with proceedings later that same day, although the first folio is missing. It also includes Huntingdon’s diary for 1614, plus the start of an account of the 1624 Parliament, less than a page long, and copies of various documents related to Parliament. It is similar in form to the Folger manuscript, and should probably be seen as a continuation of the latter. The final portion of the diary covers the early stages of the 1621 Parliament. However, it consists merely of a series of fragments, now in the Bodleian and Huntington Libraries, covering the period up to 17 February. These fragments, being transcripts made by a secretary, presumably represent an early stage in the composition of a larger work; among Huntingdon’s papers are others documents relating to later proceedings in the 1621 Parliament, some in Huntingdon’s hand, which the earl undoubtedly intended to draw upon. It is possible that his increasing prominence in the affairs of the upper House meant that Huntingdon became too busy to continue keeping a record of debates.43 HEHL, HA Parliament, 2/1; Procs. 1610, i. pp. xxx-iv; 173, n.3; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. v.

None of Huntingdon’s notes made in the Lords’ chamber have survived, nor is it clear when the existing texts were compiled. The account of the dissolution of Parliament in 1610/11 states that Parliament did not meet again until 1614, indicating that the 1610 section of the diary was compiled several years after the events it describes. Indeed, it is possible that the Folger and Huntington manuscripts were created at the same time, perhaps along with the 1621 fragments. The texts were the work of scribes, not of Huntingdon himself, who is referred to as ‘my lord’. This delay in composition might account for some otherwise puzzling instances of misdating, such as the fact that Huntingdon recorded that he took the oath of allegiance on 8 June 1610, whereas the Journal states that he did so the day before.44 HMC Hastings, iv. 269; Procs. 1610, i. 99; LJ, ii. 608a. It would also explain why Huntingdon, who would have known that the House did not normally sit on a Friday, mistakenly claimed that the House did not sit on Friday 23 Mar., on which day he himself was recorded as having attended by the clerk.45 Procs. 1610, i. 52. On the days he was absent, Huntingdon filled in the gaps, usually from the Journal. He seems to have used an additional source for his account of 17 Mar. 1610, unless, that is, he actually attended himself and the clerk failed to record his presence.46 Ibid. p. xxxi, n. 4.

Huntingdon’s decision to record the proceedings of the upper House probably stemmed from his general love of written records, a love attested to by his voluminous papers. However, the amount of work which went into the preparation of his diary suggests he had something more elaborate in mind than merely recording debates in the upper House. The copies of parliamentary documents which follow the 1614 diary indicate that his interest in Parliament was rather wider. They include copies of a writ to a sheriff for the holding an election, a writ from the sheriff for summoning the freeholders to an election, an election indenture, the summons for a peer, the summons for a privy councillor to assist the Lords, a proxy and a writ to a lord dispensing with his attendance when Parliament was prorogued. These are mostly titled ‘the form of the writ’ and were evidently intended as exemplars of a type of document rather than records of specific events.47 HEHL, HA Parliament, 2/1, unfol. It seems likely that Huntingdon wanted to create a general study of the procedures, privileges and powers of Parliament, and was collecting and preparing materials to that end. However, it is striking that he seems to have made no attempt to obtain a parliamentary diary from a Member of the Commons even though he generally had kinsmen and clients in the lower House who could presumably have kept one for him had he so desired.

During the fourth session, Huntingdon made two recorded speeches. In the first of these, on 26 Mar., he seconded the motion of Oliver St. John^*, 3rd Lord St. John of Bletso, for the bill against clerical non residence and pluralism to be given a second reading, but was not supported.48 Procs. 1610, i. 53. He made his second speech on 3 July, when he reported the bill concerning a weir near Exeter, which he had been named to consider on 25 June.49 LJ, ii. 623a, 634a. In total, he was named to 16 of the 58 committees appointed by the upper House. Several concerned legislation of a religious nature, such as the bill to require those naturalized or restored in blood to receive communion and take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the renewed bill against the enforcement of ecclesiastical Canons not confirmed by Parliament.50 Ibid. 606b, 611a.

On 26 May Huntingdon was appointed to the committee for the bill to establish his wife’s uncle, the 6th earl of Derby, as lord of the Isle of Man.51 Ibid. 601a. This was a measure in which had a very direct interest. His wife, as coheir of the 5th earl of Derby, had a claim to the island, and the bill which passed into law, confirmed an agreement between the 6th earl of Derby and his brother’s coheirs in which Derby had agreed to buy out Huntingdon and the other claimants.52 J. Parr, Abstract of the Laws, Customs and Ordinances of the Isle of Man ed. J. Gell (Manx Soc. xii), 61-2. On 14 July, when the session had only nine days left to run, Huntingdon was added to the committee to confer with the Commons about the Great Contract.53 LJ, ii. 644b.

The fourth session witnessed Huntingdon’s first known attempt to exercise electoral patronage. Sir William Skipwith^‡, one of the burgesses of Leicester, died on 3 May. In late April, as Skipwith lay dying, Huntingdon visited Leez Priory, the Essex home of Robert Rich^*, 3rd Lord Rich (subsequently 1st earl of Warwick) in company with Rich’s eldest son, Sir Robert Rich^* (later 2nd earl of Warwick), a Member of the Commons and Huntingdon’s distant kinsman. On the day of Skipwith’s death, Huntingdon wrote to the corporation of Leicester recommending Sir Robert’s younger brother, Henry Rich^* (subsequently earl of Holland) as a replacement. Previous earls of Huntingdon had not always been successful when it came to influencing elections in Leicester, and it was a testament to Huntingdon’s recently confirmed authority in the borough that Henry Rich was elected.54 HMC Hastings, i. 368-9; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 226.

When the fifth session opened on 16 Oct. 1610, Huntingdon’s absence was excused by Ellesmere, who announced that the earl had been ‘hindered by [a] special occasion’.55 LJ, ii. 667a. Huntingdon did not leave Leicestershire until 1 Nov., arriving in London two days later, by which time the Lords had adjourned their proceedings until the 5th. He did not take his seat until the 6th, nor did he obtain an account of proceedings during his absence. Consequently, his diary for the fifth session does not start until 6 November. Huntingdon subsequently missed only one sitting, on 29 Nov., when the House adjourned itself without conducting any business, a fact the earl noted in his diary. In all, he attended 11 of the 21 sittings, 52 per cent of the total.56 HMC Hastings, i. 370, iv. 228; Procs. 1610, i. p. xxx.

Huntingdon made no recorded speeches during the session, but was appointed to three of the seven committees named by the Lords. The first, on 8 Nov., was to consider the bill to prevent lawsuits over bequests of lands, which was committed on the recommendation of Ellesmere. Four days later he was named to the committee for the bill concerning the administration of the duchy of Cornwall, recently reconstituted for Prince Henry. The following day he was instructed to attend a conference with the Commons about supply following the collapse of the Great Contract.57 LJ, ii. 675a, 677a, 678a; Procs. 1610, i. 167.

Huntingdon’s account of the proceedings for 20 Nov. includes the description of a meeting, at which he himself was not present, between the king and Members of the Commons, held the previous Friday. It also includes a summary of the reasons why Huntingdon thought the Great Contract had failed: the scale of the king’s demands; uncertainty over how to levy the additional revenue to be granted to the king in lieu of wardship and purveyance, and James’s refusal to allow statute law to trump the prerogative, so that there was no guarantee that any statutory constraints on the king’s power would remain in force. The diary then jumps abruptly into the middle of debate about a bill. The disjointed nature of the proceedings for 20 Nov. suggests that it was a compilation of different documents, one being Huntingdon’s observations on the Contract, another being an account of a debate copied by a scribe who failed to realize he had omitted to include the start of the debate. (Presumably other parts of the diary were similarly compiled, but with rather more care). Thereafter, the proceedings for 21-24 Nov. all are misdated by a day.58 HMC Hastings, iv. 226-8.

Huntingdon was named a commissioner for proroguing the Parliament on 6 Dec., and for dissolving it on 9 Feb. 1611. He was not present on the latter occasion, having left London on 19 Dec., his trunks, weighing 11 hundredweight, following him five days later.59 Ibid. i. 371.

Huntingdon probably regretted the collapse of the Great Contract, because one of its key elements concerned the abolition of purveyance. On becoming lord lieutenant in 1607 Huntingdon had taken over responsibility for administering Leicestershire’s composition for purveyance, but, by 1610, the burden was causing increasing controversy in the county. Lord Grey of Groby’s eldest son, Sir John Grey^‡, was a prominent courtier, and in 1611 the Greys offered, without reference to Huntingdon, to negotiate a new agreement for the county. They also organized a protest against John Bale, a highly controversial member of the Hastings affinity, appointed to the bench at the earl’s nomination. However, this complaint was made to Ellesmere, whose wife (Huntingdon’s mother-in-law) assured Huntingdon of her husband’s support. Moreover, the Greys’ attempt to negotiate an alternative composition scheme collapsed after Sir John Grey died in October 1611.60 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 221; Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture’, 95-8; HEHL, HA2412.

The Addled Parliament and growing prominence at court, 1614-20

When Parliament was summoned again, in 1614, Huntingdon initially nominated both his brother George^‡ and Henry Rich for seats at Leicester. However, he subsequently secured George’s election for the county, whereupon the borough offered one seat to the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Thomas Parry^‡, who nominated Sir Francis Leigh^‡. Elected alongside Rich, Leigh was doubtless acceptable to Huntingdon, as he was the earl’s first cousin as well as Ellesmere’s son-in-law.61 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 221, 226; v. 90; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 38.

Huntingdon is recorded as having attended at least 25 of the 29 sittings of the upper House. He was probably also present on 7 Apr., when no attendances were recorded, as he took down in his diary speeches made at the presentation of the Speaker of the Commons. However, he certainly missed the next three days.62 HMC Hastings, iv. 234-6, 245-7; LJ, ii. 695b-98a. Appointed by the king to the largely honorary post of a trier of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland at the start of the Parliament, Huntingdon was subsequently named to five out of the nine committees established by the Lords and made one speech. Of his committee appointments, the one which perhaps meant most to him was the bill to enforce the Sabbath. On 31 May the committee was instructed to confer with the Commons, the proceedings of which meeting, held four days later, were recorded by Huntingdon.63 LJ, ii. 708b, 713b; HMC Hastings, iv. 278-80. The earl was also appointed to consider a fresh measure concerning bequests of land, and subsequently recorded the unfavourable opinion delivered to the committee by Sir Edward Coke^‡, lord chief justice of King’s Bench, probably on 18 Apr., when the committee was scheduled to meet.64 LJ, ii. 694a; HMC Hastings, iv. 244-5

The only occasion Huntingdon is recorded as having spoken was on 28 May, when he himself noted in his diary that he contradicted the lord admiral, Charles Howard^*, 1st earl of Nottingham, who described Richard Neile^*, bishop of Lincoln (subsequently archbishop of York), as a nobleman rather than ‘a lord of Parliament’. However, before correcting a privy councillor, Huntingdon wisely took the precaution of describing himself as ‘the weakest and meanest person in this House’.65 HMC Hastings, iv. 269.

Despite his close relationship with Ellesmere, Huntingdon appears to have disliked the lord chancellor’s high-handed management of the upper House over the vexed question of whether to consult the Commons on the subject of impositions. The matter was debated in a committee of the whole House on 21 May, at the conclusion of which discussion Huntingdon recorded that he thought all those present ‘took it for granted’ that a meeting, albeit not a formal conference, had been agreed upon. It was also widely felt that it was ‘only for form’s sake’ that this decision was to be reported to the House when it reconvened on the 23rd. However, the Privy Council was determined to prevent such a meeting. Consequently, when the House reassembled Ellesmere announced that the committee had been able to ‘conclude nothing’. Moreover, according to Huntingdon, Ellesmere then proceeded to force through a motion to consult the judges first, with the votes of the privy councillors and bishops.66 Ibid. 251, 255; C. Russell, King Jas. VI and I and his English Parls. 119.

Impositions proved to be the rock on which the Parliament foundered. On the night of Saturday 4 June a messenger of the Chamber came to Huntingdon’s lodgings with instructions to arrive at eight on Monday morning (rather than between nine and ten, as previously agreed) with his robes, in preparation for the dissolution. In fact Parliament was not dissolved until the Tuesday, as the Lords waited in vain for the Commons to vote taxation.67 HMC Hastings, iv. 280-3; LJ, ii. 715a. Following the dissolution, Huntingdon paid £100 towards the benevolence levied by James I.68 E351/1950.

Soon after the Parliament ended, Lord Grey of Groby died. For Huntingdon this was welcome news, as it meant that the Grey challenge to his dominance in Leicestershire was temporarily at an end (Grey having been succeeded by a minor, his grandson Henry Grey^*, subsequently 1st earl of Stamford).69 CP, vi. 135-6. At around the same time, Huntingdon was appointed lord lieutenant of Rutland, in succession to John Harington^*, 2nd Lord Harington, who had died in March. His grandfather had held this office, and Huntingdon therefore considered it to be part of his birth-right. He had accordingly engaged the services of his kinsman, William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, one of the most influential men at court, in order to secure it.70 HEHL, HA5445.

It was not long before Huntingdon’s standing at court benefited from the rise of a new royal favourite, George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham), who was sponsored by a faction of which Pembroke, now lord chamberlain, was a leader. Villiers’ stepfather was Huntingdon’s kinsman, Sir Thomas Compton, whose appointment to the Leicestershire bench Huntingdon had secured in 1608, along with that of the new favourite’s older half-brother, William. In October 1616 Compton’s wife promised Huntingdon that ‘my son [George Villiers] will do your lordship any service that lieth in his power’.71 HEHL, HA1576; Nichols, iii. 608; Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture’, 110n92. That same month Huntingdon’s brother-in-law, Philip Stanhope^* (subsequently 1st earl of Chesterfield), desiring to purchase a barony, reportedly went to London ‘determined to put all my Lord Huntingdon’s friends to work’. His efforts proved successful, as Stanhope secured his title on 7 November.72 Holles Letters (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 142. Huntingdon himself was in London in November, when he participated in the ceremonies surrounding the creation of Prince Charles (Stuart^*) as prince of Wales. He also accompanied his cousin, Sir Henry Montagu^* (subsequently 1st earl of Manchester) to Westminster Hall to see the latter sworn in as lord chief justice.73 Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 55; HMC Downshire, vi. 51. In October 1618 Huntingdon was once again told to pay the money he owed the crown within 15 days. However, with strong friends at court, it is perhaps not surprising that he managed to fend off this latest threat to his estates.74 HMC Hastings, ii. 56.

In April 1619 Huntingdon excused himself from attending the funeral of Anne of Denmark, on the grounds that he needed to take for his health a ‘diet drink’ which he found ‘so distasteful’ he could not travel.75 Ibid. 57; G.P.V. Akrigg, Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton, 145. In January 1620 Sir Edwin Sandys^‡, head of the Virginia Company, sounded him out about becoming a member of the Company’s council, he having been an investor since 1610. Huntingdon agreed, and was elected the following June. Sandys also tried to recruit Huntingdon to join a group within the company, headed by Huntingdon’s friend, Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton, who proposed to establish a plantation in the colony.76 HMC Hastings, ii. 57.

During the early 1620s, Huntingdon emerged as a keen supporter of the king’s son-in-law, the Elector Palatine Frederick V, elected king of Bohemia in 1619. In the summer of 1620 Huntingdon vigorously raised money in Leicestershire and Rutland to support Frederick’s cause, collecting a total of £1,587. This was an impressive sum, but Huntingdon himself was disappointed it was not more.77 Ibid. iv. 203; HEHL, HAM53/6, ff. 59-62; Recs. of the Bor. of Leicester, iv. 192.

The parliaments of the 1620s

The Spanish invasion of Frederick’s hereditary lands forced James I to call another Parliament. Huntingdon received his writ on 30 Nov., by which date he had already nominated at Leicester Sir Richard Moryson^‡, one of his deputy lieutenants for Leicestershire, and his cousin, Sir William Harington^‡. The borough agreed to elect Moryson but chose for the other seat Sir William Heyricke^‡, a London goldsmith originally from Leicester. Huntingdon had previously had business dealings with Heyricke, but it is likely that Heyricke owed his return to his brother-in-law, Sir Humphrey May^‡, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Harington was instead found a seat at Newtown, Isle of Wight, probably as a favour to Huntingdon by Southampton, captain of the Isle of Wight.78 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 226-7; iv. 546; HMC Hastings, i. 374. Huntingdon also nominated two candidates for the county seats, his brother, George, and his cousin, Sir Henry Hastings^‡. However, they were opposed by Sir Thomas Beaumont^‡, who had the support of the sheriff. Consequently, although Huntingdon’s nominees commanded overwhelming support, two indentures were made out, one naming the two Hastings cousins, the other returning Beaumont and Sir Henry Hastings. The royal favourite Villiers, now marquess of Buckingham, being Beaumont’s kinsman, tried to persuade George Hastings to accept the first of these returns, but to no avail as the Commons subsequently upheld George’s election.79 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 221-2.

Huntingdon is recorded as having attended 38 of the 44 sittings before Easter, 86 per cent of the total. In addition, he must also have attended on 16 and 17 Feb., for though not listed as present he recorded the proceedings for both days in his diary and made a report on the 17th.80 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 19-21. He may also have attended the two prorogation meetings held before the session started, on 16 and 23 January. He certainly recorded the speech of the lord chancellor, Viscount St. Alban (Francis Bacon^*) on the latter occasion, and noted in the margin of his diary ‘that both these times the Lords sat not in their robes’.81 Ibid. 1. Early in the Parliament he received the proxy of his brother-in-law, Philip Stanhope, now Lord Stanhope of Shelford, who was excused on 8 Feb. but continued to attend the upper House until the 23rd.82 LJ, iii. 4b, 12b.

Shortly before Parliament met, Huntingdon received an undated paper seeking his support for a wide range of measures, among them a private bill promoted by Zaccheus Bunning, curate of Market Harborough in Leicestershire between 1618 and 1623. It began with a standard list of moderate godly demands, with which Huntingdon would have sympathized: measures against ignorant and scandalous ministers, clerical pluralism and the enforcement of the Sabbath. It then went on to list secular grievances, including monopolies, the export of bullion by the East India Company, depopulation, and cart-taking during royal progresses. One proposal that Huntingdon probably did not support was the suppression of lotteries, which had become the main source of income for the Virginia Company.83 HMC Hastings, iv. 322-4; Nichols, ii. 496.

On 5 Feb. Huntingdon was named to the newly formed privileges committee.84 LJ, iii. 20b. His diaries show that issues of privilege and procedure greatly interested him; indeed, that may be the reason why he kept a diary in the first place.85 Procs. 1610, i. p. xxxii. Huntingdon retained a copy of the committee list, and also a copy of the newly drafted Standing Orders, both of which he intended to incorporate into his diary. He endorsed his copy of the Orders with the date 6 Feb., suggesting that it was on this day that the Orders were drawn up by the privileges committee. However, he intended to enter them in his diary with proceedings for the 8th, when the Orders were formally reported to the House.86 HMC Hastings, iv. 286; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 7, 9; Bodl., Carte 77, ff. 192-202.

On 14 Feb. Huntingdon was appointed to a subcommittee of the privileges committee and instructed to search for records relating to the privileges of the Lords, which were widely felt to be under threat. As the subcommittee’s senior peer, he reported three days later that, having ‘spent two whole afternoons’ searching the records, he and his colleagues had found ‘the labour great and the work intricate’. On his recommendation, the House authorized the subcommittee to appoint such men as they thought fit to search the records ‘for their lordships’ greater ease’. The subcommittee was also instructed to inspect the Journal.87 LJ, iii. 21a, ‘Hasting 1621’, p. 20 Huntingdon kept a copy of a warrant, dated 22 Feb., issued by the subcommittee instructing those with relevant papers to allow the subcommittee’s appointees access to the records.88 Bodl., Carte 77, f. 185.

On 27 Mar. Huntingdon was named to an augmented subcommittee for privileges, which was required to sit over Easter. Its members included Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, who outranked Huntingdon. However, the Lords instructed Huntingdon to chair the subcommittee in Arundel’s absence. Huntingdon subsequently attended meetings on 29 Mar. and 13 April.89 LJ, iii. 73b-4a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 53; HMC Hastings, iv. 289-90.

Early in the Parliament, Huntingdon signed the petition against allowing Englishmen who had purchased Irish and Scottish viscountcies from taking precedence over English barons, although there were then no peers with Scottish or Irish titles living in Leicestershire or Rutland. He was presumably motivated by his desire to preserve the privileges of the English nobility. He certainly kept a copy of the petition, and moved, without success, to have the document read when it was debated in the Lords on 20 February. Moreover, among his papers is part of a bill intended to give English nobles precedence over Scottish and Irish peers. Endorsed simply ‘the draft of a bill that was intended to have been put into the higher House of Parliament in … 1620[/1]’, what survives appears to be the first and last pages of a longer document that also sought to put on a statutory footing the principle that, within each rank of the nobility, precedence should follow antiquity of title. Plans to introduce this measure were presumably abandoned after the king reacted angrily to the petition.90 Bodl., Carte 77, ff. 170-1, 187; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 11.

Huntingdon served as a teller on 12 Feb. in favour of a motion to recommit the bill for improving the arms of the militia, a measure of interest to him as a lord lieutenant.91 ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 12. He was also named to 17 of the 28 committees appointed by the upper House before Easter, of which seven were legislative, including one to consider the now perennial bill to enforce the Sabbath. On 5 Mar. he reported a bill he had been appointed to consider ten days previously, to confirm a Chancery decree concerning property in Staffordshire. The committee found the bill ‘in many points defective’, and on his motion the Lords ordered that it should sleep.92 LJ, iii. 28a, 36a, 39a.

In March Huntingdon was named to conferences with the Commons about apprehending the fugitive monopolist Sir Giles Mompesson^‡ and to receive information about monopolies. On 15 Mar., apparently in his absence, he was appointed to consider the patent concerning the licensing of inns.93 Ibid. 34a, 42b, 46b. Six days later he was named to the second of three committees established to consider the corruption charges presented by the Commons against Bacon, in which his brother, George, was heavily implicated. He was the senior member of the committee and, the following day, he took custody of the documents sent by the lower House relating to these charges.94 Ibid. 58b, 65b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 37; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 584.

Appointed on 22 Mar. to a small committee charged with searching for precedents concerning the procedure to be used by the upper House in exercising their revived judicial power, Huntingdon reported back to his colleagues the following day. However, it was his friend, Sir Robert Rich, now 2nd earl of Warwick, who read out the precedents.95 LJ, iii. 65b, 67b. On 26 Mar. the king addressed the Lords, and gave his consent to the proceedings against Mompesson. It was probably this speech to which Huntingdon was referring when he wrote to Arundel three days later from his lodgings in the Minories. By now Huntingdon was evidently well known for taking notes, and James had sent a message, via Arundel, asking to see Huntingdon’s record of his speech. Huntingdon expressed his willingness to comply but apologized that ‘my affections were so filled with joy at the hearing of it as they would not give my hand leave to set down the same as largely as I wished I had’.96 Ibid. 68b-70b; HMC Hastings, ii. 59; HEHL, HA5459.

Huntingdon evidently spent much of the Easter recess in London, attending a court of the Virginia Company on 12 Apr. and meetings of the subcommittee of privileges on 29 Mar. and 13 April.97 Recs. Virg. Co. i. 444. He clearly attended the upper House assiduously between the resumption of the session on 17 Apr. and the adjournment for the summer on 4 June. However, his precise attendance rate is unclear. He is recorded as having attended 40 of the 43 sittings, 93 per cent of the total, but was excused on 24 May, even though the clerk marked him as present. He was also recorded as absent on 30 May, which must be an error, as he delivered two reports that day.98 LJ, iii. 130a. During this period Huntingdon made 11 recorded speeches and was appointed to 18 of the 46 or 47 committees appointed by the Lords. By now established as the chairman of the subcommittee for privileges, Huntingdon received on 8 May a copy of the House’s order requiring the subcommittee to establish the correct procedure for bringing in writs of error. He reported back its findings four days later.99 Ibid. 114b, 119b. The subcommittee was also charged with checking the clerk’s scribbled book of notes, a task Huntingdon performed on at least three occasions between Easter and the summer recess.100 LD 1621, pp. 4, 24; Add. 40085, f. 79.

When the disgraced attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, was examined before the Lords on 18 Apr. concerning his role in enforcing monopolies, Huntingdon informed his colleagues that he had ‘heard that there were blanks in the [monopoly] patents’ drawn up by Yelverton, presumably to be filled in by the monopolists as they themselves chose. However, when the patents were examined no such gaps were found.101 PA, HO/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 27. Huntingdon was unhappy when the king tried to take the proceedings against Yelverton back into his hands. He supported Henry de Vere^*, 18th earl of Oxford, who argued that the case was still under examination, and called for Yelverton to be given another hearing by the House.102 LD 1621, p. 55.

On 18 Apr. Huntingdon supported Southampton and Arundel, the senior members of the other two committees examining the evidence against Bacon, after they moved to allow reports to be submitted the next day.103 Ibid. 6. The following day Huntingdon presented the evidence collected by his committee. Subsequently he raised the question of Theophilus Field^*, bishop of Llandaff, who had been accused of brokering bribes for Bacon. Huntingdon did not take the accusation against Field seriously, declaring it to be a ‘petty business’, and as a result, Field was referred back to Huntingdon’s committee.104 LJ, iii. 79b; PA, HO/PO/JO/5/1/1, f. 35. On 24 Apr. Huntingdon moved for Bacon to be charged at the bar of the House. On 3 May he further moved that the House be put into committee to debate the lord chancellor’s sentence. He later wrote that Bacon’s punishment was ‘just though sharp’.105 LD 1621, pp. 15, 62; HEHL, HA5483. On 30 May he reported the findings of his committee in the case against Field, whereupon the upper House agreed that the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot^*, should admonish the bishop in Convocation.106 LJ, iii. 143a-4a.

On 24 Apr. the Commons presented charges against Sir John Bennet^‡, a judge in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, one of which concerned the administration of the goods of Catherine, dowager countess of Huntingdon, widow of the 3rd earl, who had died in August 1620. Bennet was accused of granting Catherine’s goods to one Williams and defrauding her creditors of their money. It seems unlikely that Huntingdon himself had lost anything as a result of Bennet’s conduct; his chief concern was probably the jointure lands of the late countess. (In August 1620 Huntingdon’s wife had received an assurance that the dowager’s brother, Robert Sidney^*, 1st earl of Leicester, would see that documents relating to the Hastings estates were safely delivered to Huntingdon).107 CD 1621, iii. 15, 25; v. 79, 335, 338; D. Lysons, Environs of London, ii. 75; HEHL, HA6732; PROB 6/10, f. 82v. Nevertheless, Huntingdon regarded Bennet’s offences as serious, for on 25 Apr. he supported calls for Bennet to post ‘great bail’. Huntingdon was also named to the committee assigned to investigate the charges, which he evidently chaired, as he reported its findings. Interestingly, the allegation concerning the countess does not seem to have been included in his report, perhaps suggesting that it did not stand up to scrutiny.108 LJ, iii. 144a-b.

Huntingdon is known to have spoken only once about the legislative business of the upper House, on 17 Apr., when he moved for the bill to regulate the issuing of prerogative writs, used to transfer cases to the national courts, to be revived. As a result of his intervention, the committee to which he had been appointed on 8 Mar. was ordered to meet again.109 Ibid. 39b; LD 1621, p. 3. A commissioner for adjourning the session on 4 June, Huntingdon remained in London until at least the 13th, when he attended a court of the Virginia Company.110 Recs. Virg. Co. i. 486. He did not attend when Parliament was again adjourned, on 14 Nov., despite having been named a commissioner. Indeed, he was still in Leicestershire when the session resumed six days later,111 HEHL, HAM53/6, f. 65v. and was recorded as present in the Lords only once before the third Jacobean Parliament was dissolved. This was on 27 Nov., and it was probably a clerical mistake. However, his absence was not excused until 1 December. He named Pembroke’s brother, Philip Herbert^*, earl of Montgomery (subsequently 4th earl of Pembroke) as his proxy.112 LJ, iii. 4b, 177a.

When instructions reached Leicestershire for levying the Palatinate benevolence in April 1622, Huntingdon was in poor health. Nevertheless, a month later he reported on the zeal with which the local magistrates were collecting money and pressed his deputy lieutenants in Rutland to further the benevolence.113 HMC Hastings, iv. 205; HEHL, HA5463, HA1121; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 389. The following year, the lord treasurer, the 1st earl of Middlesex (Lionel Cranfield^*), initiated proceedings to seize the Hastings’ estate for payment of the 3rd earl of Huntingdon’s debt to the crown. This was a much more radical step than had been taken by previous lord treasurers, and suggests that Middlesex was trying to take advantage of Buckingham’s absence in Spain. On 18 Sept. Huntingdon asked Middlesex for a stay until he had received a hearing, arguing that he paid more to the king than anyone else in the kingdom. He wrote again on 14 Nov., offering to increase his rent to £100 a year. Once again Huntingdon succeeded in fending off a threat to his estates, although it took him until the following July to do so.114 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE377; Huntingdon to Middlesex 18 Sept. and 14 Nov. 1623; Cogswell, 71, 84n.9.

The question mark hanging over his estates may have undermined Huntingdon’s authority in Leicestershire, and consequently diminished his electoral influence. When fresh parliamentary elections were held at the beginning of 1624, Huntingdon initially seems to have hoped to return both his brother, George, and cousin, Sir Henry Hastings, for the county seats, as he had done in 1621. However, he evidently expected opposition. When the sheriff informed him on 10 Jan. that the county election would be held five days later, Huntingdon immediately wrote to the corporation of Leicester asking them to defer the borough election until after the knights of the shire had been chosen. His fears were evidently well founded, for although Sir Henry Hastings was chosen the remaining county seat was conferred on Sir Thomas Hesilrige^‡. Nevertheless, the latter may have been Huntingdon’s second choice, after his initial preference proved too controversial, as Hesilrige was one of the earl’s deputy lieutenants. That same day, Huntingdon again wrote to the corporation of Leicester, this time asking them to bestow one of their seats on his brother, George. However, the corporation decided to elect Sir Humphrey May, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, whose candidacy Huntingdon had previously endorsed, along with one of their own aldermen.115 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 222, 227.

In 1624 Huntingdon also nominated two of his deputy lieutenants for Rutland, Sir Guy Palmes^‡ and Sir William Bulstrode^‡, as knights of the shire for Rutland, his only known intervention in the electoral politics of that county. However, it is unlikely that their return owed much to his influence. He had no significant estates in the shire, and Palmes and Bulstrode had been elected there in 1621 without his intervention. He was probably just endorsing their candidacy as a courtesy to loyal subordinates.116 Ibid. 327.

Huntingdon received his writ of summons on 11 January. However, on 7 Feb. he wrote to James Maxwell, gentleman usher to the House of Lords, seeking leave of absence from the forthcoming Parliament until Easter. Citing as his excuse the poor weather and his own ‘indisposition of health’, he stated that in March he would undergo ‘a course of physic for a fortnight’, and that the only doctor he used was one who lived near him in Leicestershire. He was so confident of receiving the required permission that he sent his proxy to Southampton in anticipation. Eleven days later, after being granted formal leave, he urged Southampton to accept his proxy, assuring him that if ‘I had more than this single voice to confer I should most willingly bestow them upon you’.117 HEHL, HA Parliament, 2/1, unfol. Huntingdon was excused when the House was called on 23 Feb. and Southampton delivered his proxy to the clerk the following day.118 LJ, iii. 214b; Add. 40087, f. 19.

During his absence Huntingdon was kept informed of proceedings in the Lords by Sir John Davies^‡, one of the House’s legal assistants, whose daughter had recently married Huntingdon’s son and heir, Ferdinando Hastings^† (subsequently 6th earl of Huntingdon). Until at least mid April, Davies regularly supplied Huntingdon with newsletters, enclosing copies of speeches and other documents. (Huntingdon also employed Mr Newton, probably his solicitor, to procure copies of reports, the titles of bills and other notes from the clerk of the parliaments.)119 HMC Hastings, ii. 63-5; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 35-6. On 16 Mar. Huntingdon wrote thanking Davies for keeping him informed of proceedings, including Parliament’s advice to the king to break off the treaties for the Spanish Match and recovery of the Palatinate. Observing that ‘a great mass of money will not recover that now [what] a little formerly would have kept’, he feared that the king, whose antipathy to military conflict was well known, ‘will hardly have the patience to endure the expense of so much money and length of time as a war for the recovery of the Palatinate will cause’. He nevertheless considered that war was ‘an inevitable necessity’.120 HEHL, HA5482; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 35-6.

Huntingdon wrote again to Davies on 15 Apr., by which time he had abandoned any thought of attending Parliament, as he had still to undergo his course of physic. (He would not be able to travel until mid May, he said, ‘by which time I imagine this sessions will be ended’.) In this second letter he praised a tract ‘to dissuade the Spanish Match’, sent to him by Davies. However, he was chiefly interested in the news about the proceedings against Middlesex, particularly the charge that the lord treasurer had failed to fund the Ordnance Office properly. Huntingdon thought that Middlesex’s ‘wilful negligence and carelessness’ to provide for England’s defences might have encouraged Spain ‘to make the stricter conditions’ in the treaty for the Spanish Match, and thereby emboldened her to launch a sudden invasion which would have proved ‘unresistable’. Consequently, he regarded Middlesex’s offences as worse than Bacon’s, which hurt ‘only particular private persons’. He prayed that ‘all unjust officers come unto the like censure [as] he [Middlesex] is to have’.121 HEHL, HA5483. HMC Hastings, ii. 64-5.

Huntingdon’s letters to Davies make no mention of the bills then before Parliament, but this does not mean that the earl was uninterested in legislation. A paper drawn up in October 1624, entitled ‘remembrances against the Parliament,’ details the agenda he wanted to advance during the anticipated second session, which, in the event, never met. It reveals his continuing interest in matters of religion. For example, he wanted to ‘confer with some lords and bishops’ about bringing forward proposals to improve the income of the clergy. Moreover, if another Sabbath bill was introduced he wished to ensure that it included a provision to prevent people from being arrested while going to or from church. Huntingdon’s paper also indicates that its author was interested in charitable affairs, as he wanted to make it illegal for trustees to take leases of property in their care and to ensure that entry fines were not appropriated by the officers of schools and hospitals.122 ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 36.

Following the death of James I in March 1625, a fresh Parliament was summoned. On 1 Apr., the day before writs were issued, Davies wrote informing Huntingdon that the new assembly would meet on 17 May.123 HMC Hastings, ii. 67. Eight days later Huntingdon nominated his brother, George, as one of the knights of the shire for Leicestershire. He did not say who he wanted to be returned for the other seat, merely that he would nominate a suitable candidate ‘both for his religion, wisdom, and estate, and …best accommodated to do the country service’. It is possible that he was as yet unsure whether to nominate another member of his family or, less provocatively, one of his allies among the county gentry. As matters transpired, George was elected for the borough of Leicester on 3 May. When the county court was held two days later, it was Huntingdon’s son Ferdinando, still only a teenager, who was returned for the shire, alongside Sir Wolstan Dixie^‡, whom Huntingdon shortly after appointed one of his deputy lieutenants.124 Procs. 1625, pp. 691-2; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 222-3, 228.

The 1625 Parliament was repeatedly prorogued, and so did not start until 18 June. Huntingdon originally intended to attend the opening, hiring a house a month beforehand. However, his plans were changed by a severe outbreak of plague in the capital, which infected the house he had taken. Forced to remain in Leicestershire, he was marked as absent when the upper House was called on 23 June. By the 28th he had succeeded in taking another house, but now claimed that he was hampered from coming up by wet weather: ‘the waters have been so great I could not pass in my coach’. However, there is no evidence that he even attempted the journey, as he was writing from his home in Leicestershire. The supposed flooding may have been just an excuse. Believing that ‘the Parliament is likely to hold but for a short time’, he asked Pembroke to obtain permission for him to be absent. Correctly anticipating that this would be granted, he also sent Pembroke his proxy (Southampton having died the previous year).125 Procs. 1625, pp. 591, 670. Huntingdon’s belief that Parliament would not last long proved to be misplaced, however, for on 11 July it was adjourned to Oxford to escape the plague. Ten days later Davies wrote to Huntingdon in the hope that the earl could be induced to attend when the session reconvened, but Huntingdon continued to keep away when Parliament reassembled in early August.126 HEHL, HA1931.

By the time elections for the second Caroline Parliament were held in January 1626 Huntingdon had decided to send his son Ferdinando to Cambridge. He therefore nominated once again his cousin Sir Henry Hastings as a knight of the shire. Sir Henry’s fellow knight, Francis Staresmore^‡, may also have been the earl’s nominee, as he was one of Huntingdon’s deputy lieutenants and subsequently sent the earl reports on proceedings in the Commons. Nevertheless, it was not until the day of the county election that Huntingdon nominated his brother, George, for a seat at Leicester (where he was elected). This suggests that the situation that had arisen in 1624 was repeated. In other words, Huntingdon initially hoped for a Hastings monopoly of the county seats, but, when it came to the point, he preferred to accept the combination of one of his relatives with one of his deputy lieutenants rather than risk a contest.127 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 223, 228.

Huntingdon excused himself from attending Charles I’s coronation on 2 Feb., claiming that he had not been given enough time to ‘provide myself fittingly’. He was also absent when the upper House was called on 15 February. Although it was recorded that he ‘intends to come’, he wrote to Pembroke that same day seeking leave of absence and sending him his proxy. As well as his ‘indisposition of health to travel in winter’, he cited his ‘great burden of debt’ and the expense of sending his eldest son to university. It was probably in error that he was marked as present in the Journal on 6 and 15 March.128 HEHL, HA5508; Procs. 1626, i. 49; iv. 11, 230.

On 28 Feb. Huntingdon’s cousin, Henry Montagu, now 1st earl of Manchester, informed the House that two attorneys had forged letters of protection from Huntingdon, which they had sold in East Anglia the previous summer. On 13 Mar. the offenders were examined before the Lords. A representative of Huntingdon’s also gave evidence, and a letter sent to the earl shortly after the dissolution of the 1625 Parliament, informing him of the abuse, was read out.129 Procs. 1626, i. 80, 143-6.

Huntingdon received at least one newsletter from Davies during the 1626 Parliament. Dated 26 Feb., it reported the start of the attacks on Buckingham, which were to result in impeachment proceedings. The earl also received newsletters from the Commons, apparently for the first time. These initially came from Staresmore, but after Staresmore’s death on 8 May they were sent by Sir John Skeffington^‡, a Leicestershire resident sitting for Newcastle-under-Lyme, whom Huntingdon had appointed captain of the horse militia.130 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 36-43; HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 334-5, 429.

In early July 1626, following the dissolution, a new lease was made of the Hastings estates for the increased rent of £100, which sum Huntingdon had offered Middlesex three years earlier.131 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 370-1; 43rd DKR, 34. The aftermath of the Parliament also saw the king, who had failed to obtain a vote of subsidies, attempted to levy a benevolence. In August he appealed in person to Huntingdon and other members of the nobility, but there is no evidence that the cash-strapped earl ever responded.132 HMC Hastings, iv. 209.

In July the Privy Council ordered an expansion of the militia, causing Huntingdon to require £1,190 to be raised in Leicestershire to cover the costs. Previously levies for the militia had amounted to less than £200 a year and the sudden increase brought to a head discontent within the county concerning Huntingdon’s administration of the lieutenancy. Already in 1624 Sir William Faunte, a member of the county bench, had warned Huntingdon of widespread opposition to the ‘extreme a charge in payment of monies which they suppose cannot be but unnecessarily expended’. In November 1626 Faunte wrote to Sir Wolstan Dixie accusing Huntingdon of deliberately levying more money than was necessary and of embezzling the surplus. The following January this charge was reiterated in front of two privy councillors by Sir Henry Shirley at a meeting held at Leicester to initiate the execution of the Forced Loan.133 Ibid.; SP16/70/70; HEHL, HA3147; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 223; Cogswell, 142-3; Harl. 3881, f. 62v. This accusation came at a difficult juncture for Huntingdon, for, at around the same time, he asked to be excused from contributing to the Forced Loan on grounds of poverty.134 HMC Hastings, ii. 70, 73-4. The truthfulness of this plea has been questioned, since Huntingdon went on to pay the five subsidies voted by the 1628 Parliament without difficulty, or so it has been claimed. In fact, by the time the fifth subsidy was demanded, Huntingdon owed the crown a total of £200 in taxes.135 Cogswell, 145, 147n.19; HEHL, HA13789-92; K. Sharpe, Personal Rule of Chas. I, 12.

It seems likely that Huntingdon expected to receive a sympathetic hearing. Like other peers, he had a history of failing to pay his taxes without suffering serious repercussions, and the crown initially sought to minimize the appearance of opposition to the Loan by offering its most prominent opponents, such as John Holles, now 1st earl of Clare, the opportunity to avoid paying so long as it appeared that they had.136 Lansd. 169, f. 135v; R. Cust, Forced Loan, 104-5. Huntingdon may have hoped that, so long as he did not resist the Loan on principle, he too would be able to avoid payment. However, the success of the Loan meant that Huntingdon soon came under intense pressure to contribute.

In June 1627 Huntingdon sent Skeffington and Walter Ruding, his treasurer for militia charges, to answer before the Privy Council the accusation of embezzlement, and to explain his failure to pay the Loan. Skeffington, thanks to his friend and kinsman, Sir Edward Dering^‡, had useful connections, both with Buckingham and another privy councillor, Edward Sackville^*, 4th earl of Dorset. In addition, Skeffington and Ruding went armed with letters from Huntingdon to his various allies on the Council: Manchester, Pembroke, Montgomery, his brother-in-law John Egerton^*, 1st earl of Bridgwater, and Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester (who had married his great-aunt). On the matter of the militia accounts, Ruding and Skeffington were heard sympathetically: on 10 June Manchester wrote to Huntingdon pledging his support, affirming that the 1626 levy had been ‘no more than was required’ and stating that Ruding had given a good account of the expenditure. However, Skeffington reported that the king was determined to dismiss those lord lieutenants who refused to pay the Loan. This was potentially disastrous, but on 3 July the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry^* (subsequently 1st Lord Coventry), revealed that he and Manchester had persuaded the king to make an exception for Huntingdon.137 HEHL, HAM53/6, ff. 208-11; HA1676.

Although the Council had found no reason to question Huntingdon’s probity in respect of the militia funds, it proved slow to vindicate him formally in respect of Shirley’s charge. Despite a reminder from the earl, it was not until 27 Dec. that the Council informed him that they were satisfied that all money collected had been properly accounted for. Moreover, the only punishment imposed on Shirley - a brief period of confinement - was for a separate dispute between Shirley and Huntingdon’s deputy lieutenants. Not surprisingly, Huntingdon complained that he was ‘not righted of Sir Henry Shirley for slandering and accusing me’. To add insult to injury, the Council implicitly criticized Huntingdon for the size of the 1626 militia levy, which, despite Manchester’s earlier comments, they stated had been greater than necessary.138 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 424; APC, 1627-8, p. 201; HEHL, HA5519.

Huntingdon was probably shielded from the consequences of the unpopularity of his overzealous administration of the militia by his willingness, thanks to the persuasions of his wife’s cousin, Robert Spencer^*, 1st Lord Spencer, to accommodate the Grey interest. Henry Grey^*, 2nd Lord Grey of Groby, had come of age in the early 1620s, and Huntingdon had not only been careful to ensure that he was added to the county bench but also, in 1625, appointed him one of his deputy lieutenants.139 HEHL, HA12541; HAM53/6, f. 129v; HMC Hastings, ii. 62. When a new Parliament was summoned in early 1628, Shirley initially put himself forward as a candidate for Leicestershire, but Huntingdon allied himself with Grey and saw off the challenge, securing the re-election of Ferdinando as a knight of the shire. He was also responsible for the election at Leicester of Sir John Stanhope^‡, the half-brother of his brother-in-law, Lord Stanhope of Shelford, and wrote to the corporation of Oxford, which he was assisting in a lawsuit concerning a charity established by one of his ancestors, to nominate his friend, Sir Francis Wenman^‡. The corporation informed him that Wenman was, in fact, more interested in securing one of the Oxfordshire county seats, for which they had pledged him their support.140 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 223, 228, 319, 323; Oxf. Council Acts ed. M.G. Hobson and H.E. Salter (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xcv), 5, 10.

True to form, Huntingdon initially had no intention of attending Parliament. By February 1628 he was preparing instead to sue Sir Henry Shirley in Star Chamber.141 HEHL, HA5519. He was therefore marked as absent when the House was called on 22 Mar., on which day he received a dispensation from attending Parliament.142 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 87; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 32. However, he later changed his mind about resorting to Star Chamber, and decided instead to seek vindication from the upper House, probably hoping it would prove a cheaper option than a protracted lawsuit. He was recorded as having attended every sitting of the Lords from 28 Apr., except those of 21 June and the morning of 23 June, though he certainly spoke on the latter occasion. Consequently he probably attended 59 of the House’s 94 sittings, 63 per cent of the total. Named to 11 of the 52 committees appointed by the Lords in 1628, he made 15 recorded speeches. It was probably also during this session, at the end of May, that he conveyed to the House the apologies of the earl of Warwick, who was prevented from attending because his wife was suffering from an infectious disease.143 HEHL, HA10475.

On 6 May Huntingdon’s petition against Shirley was read at the committee for petitions, to which body the earl had been added five days earlier. In this document, Huntingdon accused Shirley not merely of slander but also of showing ‘contempt in general [to] all the peers of the kingdom’ for saying that ‘he cared not a fart for never a lord in England’.144 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 367, 387; PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/35, petition of the earl of Huntingdon, 6 May 1628. The committee ordered Shirley to attend two days later. After trying without success to avoid this summons by pleading that he had been ordered to appear before the court of High Commission, Shirley claimed that his criticisms of Huntingdon merely repeated what others had said. He also claimed that he had already been punished by the Council.145 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 387, 389-90, 397. Two days later, on 10 May, Huntingdon moved for witnesses to be sworn on both sides.146 Ibid. 406. Following the ensuing investigation, the committee for petitions, led by Huntingdon’s cousin, Manchester, found against Shirley. It also declared that, while the Council had cleared Huntingdon, it had not censured Shirley. Huntingdon, who left the chamber while Manchester delivered the committee’s report, was relieved at the outcome. Through his counsel he demanded not financial compensation but rather ‘reparation of his honour’. The Lords agreed that Shirley should be required to give Huntingdon ‘satisfaction’ at the bar of the House, in a form of words to be drawn up by the earl marshal, Arundel. This ‘satisfaction’ was also to be read publicly at the Leicestershire assizes, unless Huntingdon agreed to spare Shirley this additional humiliation.147 Ibid. 520-2.

On 26 May, two days after Shirley was condemned, Huntingdon made a further complaint against his tormentor, probably because it was reported that Shirley had bragged that ‘he was respected and my lord of Huntingdon slighted’. In so doing, he produced a precedent from the reign of Richard II.148 Ibid. 531; PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/35, 7 June 1628, information of Thomas Gerard. Shirley was given a hearing on 7 June, but failed to satisfy the Lords, who reaffirmed their decision to censure him and sent him to the Fleet.149 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 595. Two days later Arundel produced the ‘satisfaction’ which Shirley was to make, and the latter, brought back to the bar on the 11th, thereupon made his submission to Huntingdon on his knees. Huntingdon thanked the Lords ‘for their noble care to clear his honour’, promised not to pursue Shirley through the courts, and moved to have Shirley released. However, he did not halt the publication of the submission at the assizes.150 Ibid. 620; HEHL, HA5542.

Huntingdon appears to have supported the Petition of Right. On 14 May, after the Commons rejected the king’s demands to alter the Petition in order to preserve the prerogative, he explained that he had voted, two days earlier, to ask the Commons to take Charles’s objections into consideration rather than ‘persuade’ them to do so.151 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 428. Five days later he urged the Lords to ‘be a suitor’ to the king to restore to office those who had been removed for refusing to pay the Forced Loan, one of the Commons’ main grievances in the Petition, but his motion was rejected.152 Ibid. 460. He was also hostile to Roger Manwaring^† (later bishop of St Davids), who had preached in favour of obedience to the Loan. On 13 June, after the Petition had been formally accepted by Charles, he argued that the offending sermons should be burnt and their author fined and imprisoned. He also wanted Manwaring to recant his views, and ‘such course taken as he may not preach worse than he had’.153 Ibid. 637. On 6 June Huntingdon seconded the motion of his kinsman, Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, for a committee to present ‘the true state of the kingdom’ to the king.154 Ibid. 679.

Huntingdon was added to the committee for privileges on 5 May, and was one of the lords who, on 26 June, checked the draft Journal.155 Ibid. 378, 508, n.7. His legislative appointments included the bill to improve the arms of the militia, and yet another measure to enforce the Sabbath.156 Ibid. 367, 421. On 7 June the House was informed that Huntingdon’s sister-in-law, Anne, countess of Castlehaven [I], eldest daughter and coheir of the 5th earl of Derby, had protested against the writ of acceleration summoning James Stanley^* (later 7th earl of Derby) to Parliament as Lord Strange, as she claimed this barony for herself. Huntingdon thereupon moved for consideration of the claims of the other coheirs, one of whom was his wife.157 Ibid. 597.

Another matter which concerned Huntingdon also came before the Lords in 1628, the disafforestation of Leicester Forest, which process had begun in late 1626.158 R. Hoyle, ‘Disafforestation and Drainage’, Estates of the Eng. Crown ed. R.W. Hoyle, 375. This aroused considerable local opposition and, in early May 1628, the corporation of Leicester agreed to lobby Parliament. They sought Huntingdon’s support, but the earl was interested only in seeking compensation for having lost the office of master forester. On 31 May the Council advised Huntingdon to approach the lord treasurer and chancellor of the Exchequer ‘to the end that their lordships might find out some means to give the said earl recompense and satisfaction’, but lack of funds ensured that nothing was done. It made little difference that the Lords’ committee for petitions recommended, on 26 June, that Huntingdon should be compensated.159 Recs. of the Bor. of Leicester, iv. 244; APC, 1627-8, p. 477; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 704.

Although he failed to attend the 1629 session, Huntingdon was reappointed to the committees for privileges and petitions on 20 January.160 LJ, iv. 6a-b. He was marked as absent on 9 Feb., on which day he wrote to Manchester seeking to be excused until Easter because of poor health, which this time he blamed on gout. He sent his cousin his proxy, and was formally excused the following day by Essex, who informed the House that he intended to come as soon as he was able.161 Ibid. 25b, 27a; HMC Hastings, ii. 72. In his absence, the Lords returned to the question of the precedence of Irish and Scottish peers, an issue which remained of sufficient interest to Huntingdon that he acquired a copy of the upper House’s petition on the subject.162 Bodl., Carte 77, ff. 165-9.

Later life, 1629-43

Huntingdon continued to seek compensation for the loss of his forest office following the dissolution of the third Caroline Parliament, but found it much harder to obtain cash than promises. Although assigned 400 acres of the former Leicester Forest, he discovered that all the available land was disposed of by the time the award was made. The king referred him to a committee of the Council, whose members included Manchester, which instructed him to come up with a proposal of his own. However, in the new political climate created by the Personal Rule this proved difficult. In September 1631 Huntingdon’s wife reported from court that there was no hope of receiving a grant of crown lands ‘for it is a constant course he [Charles I] hath held to deny all suits in that kind since the duke [of Buckingham] died’. Neither was there any prospect of securing the nomination of a peerage to sell, for ‘lords he will make none’. The countess was subsequently promised the lands of Sir Miles Hobart^‡, which had reverted to the crown for lack of heirs when Hobart died in 1632. However, the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud^*, secured them instead for the founding of fellowships at Oxford.163 CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 22; HEHL, HA4846, 5531, 5547; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 722.

Despite these setbacks, Huntingdon acquired the support of one influential member of the Council in the 1630s, the earl marshal, Arundel, who made Huntingdon his deputy for Leicestershire and Rutland in 1634. Arundel was the champion of the traditional nobility, and, despite Huntingdon’s lack of wealth, saw in the earl another of the same stamp ‘the honour … in your mind, [is] agreeable to the great and noble blood in your vein[s]’.164 HEHL, HA6921; R. Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 56-8. Huntingdon’s own views may have been more ambivalent. On the one hand, he undoubtedly attached considerable importance to his noble lineage, and he was certainly strongly opposed to the sale of Scottish and Irish peerages. But on the other hand he did not regret the sale of an English peerage to his brother-in-law, Stanhope, by now earl of Chesterfield. He also held that honour needed wealth to support it, and so thought it better for his heir to marry a woman of lower social rank with a large dowry than one of higher social status with small means. Indeed, Ferdinando’s father-in-law, Sir John Davies, was the son of a tanner.165 HMC Hastings, iv. 332; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 27.

During the early 1630s, Huntingdon brought his old enemy, Sir William Faunte, before the Council on several occasions for failing to pay charges for the militia. In 1635 Huntingdon showed to the Council the letter Faunte had written in 1626 accusing him of levying more money for the militia than was necessary and embezzling the surplus. Soon thereafter, he initiated a suit against Faunte in Star Chamber, which found in favour of Huntingdon in October 1638. Faunte was fined £5,000 and Huntingdon was awarded damages of £2,000.166 HEHL, HA2296, 5541, 5543; CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 445-6; Harl. 3881, f. 64v.

The award of such substantial damages did not put an end to Huntingdon’s quest for compensation for the loss of his forest office. On the contrary, he petitioned the king to grant him Faunte’s £5,000 fine as well. When he found that ‘suits of that nature are not pleasing to your Majesty’, he asked Charles to grant him instead a free gift of £5,000, out of which he would deduct £1,350 in settlement of his debts to the crown. As a result, in March 1639 the Exchequer was ordered to pay Huntingdon a free gift of £3,000, from which £1,440 was to be deducted. However, given the financial pressures arising from the outbreak of war with Scotland, it is unlikely that this money was ever paid. In February 1640 Huntingdon finally surrendered his patent as forester, and the following month he received a further warrant for £3,000 out of the fine due from Faunte (deducting £1,565 for the earl’s debts). Faunte had died the previous December and, despite a desperate rearguard action mounted by his nephew and executor, George Faunte, his lands were seized for Huntingdon’s benefit in April 1640. Nevertheless, even after these transactions, Huntingdon’s debt to the crown remained at over £5,000.167 CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 22; 1637-8, p. 126; Bodl., Carte 78, f. 188; SO3/12, ff. 37v, 88; E214/525; Nichols, iv. 170. 175; HEHL, HA7997.

Huntingdon’s quest for compensation, and his suit against Faunte, brought him frequently to London, where he became a participant in court ceremony.168 Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 76, 78-80. However, he was no supporter of the policies of the Personal Rule. He 1634 he prayed for a new Parliament for ‘reformation of abuses’.169 Cogswell, 194. Queries in the Hastings’ papers on the speeches of the judges at the trial of John Hampden^‡ for failing to pay Ship Money suggest that the author, who may well have been Huntingdon himself, was sceptical about the crown’s case on two crucial points; one concerned whether Ship Money was a service and not a tax, and the other was whether the need for the fleet was sufficiently urgent to preclude the summoning of Parliament.170 Sharpe, 728.

There can be no question about Huntingdon’s commitment to the king’s cause in the Bishops’ Wars. His support for ceremonies and royal power in matters of religion probably meant that he had little sympathy with Scottish opposition to the imposition of a Prayer Book. Nevertheless, it was his belief that it was his duty as a nobleman to serve the crown which seems to have been uppermost in his mind. Summoned in January 1639 to attend the king at York to serve against the Scots, Huntingdon promised to bring ten horses ‘completely furnished’.171 SP16/412/125. Huntingdon’s display of loyalty perhaps explain why he finally secured a grant of compensation for the loss of his forest office the following March. He was horrified to learn that some of the nobility had been reluctant to obey the summons. Refusal, he told Arundel, was ‘an offence of so transcendent a nature as I think a greater cannot be committed unto his Majesty’. It was, however, the nobles ‘of the new stamp that … make a scruple of it’. Clearly, he believed that the inflation of honours had diluted the spirit of nobility among the peerage.172 HEHL, HA5549. His commitment to the anti-Covenanter cause seems to have wiped away his previous opposition to the Personal Rule. Addressing the Leicestershire quarter sessions in early 1639, he urged his hearers to contribute to the king’s coffers, whether in the form of Ship Money, loans or any other means demanded of them.173 Sharpe, 435, where the speech is misdated to 1638; see HEHL Hastings Mss ed. K. Watson (L. and I. Soc. spec. ser. xxii), 39.

Huntingdon joined the king at York in June 1642, where he agreed to pay for 20 cavalrymen to serve three months in the royalist forces.174 CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 344. However, though he was named to the Leicestershire commission of array, it was his second son, Henry, who acted as the driving force behind royalism in that county, Huntingdon’s eldest son, Ferdinando, initially adhering to Parliament. Nothing more is known of Huntingdon, who died at his home in Ashby de la Zouch on 14 Nov. 1643 ‘of a lethargy’, according to his grandson, Theophilus Hastings^*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. He was buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouch on 16 December. No will or grant of administration has been found.175 HMC Hastings, iv. 350; Ashby-de-la-Zouch Par. Reg. (Soc. Gen. transcript).